The Classroom by A L Bird
THE CLASSROOM
by A L BIRD
Oh yes - A L Bird is back with a brand new book and I was delighted to get my hands on it!
Just as I knew it would be, The Classroom was full of thrills, chills, and surprises. It kept me reading late into the night and it's really a hugely enjoyable psychological thriller!
It felt totally appropriate to spend my September reading a novel which centres around going back to school and a teacher....or maybe not - maybe this isn't the best book to read if your child has just stared in reception! The best thrillers are ones which take our deepest fears and make us watch what happens when other character have to live through our worst nightmares and this is something Bird does extremely well. This book keeps you on the edge of your seat as Bird creates an atmosphere of unease, anxiety and sense of pending threat from the outset and then continues to crank up the tension until the very last sentence.
Kirsten White is a devoted mother to Harriet. Everything she does is for Harriet and after years of IVF, Harriet is so incredibly precious to Kirsten that she is almost in pain with the thought of being away from her. So now it's time for her to start school, Kirsten struggles to let go of her and to entrust her daughter into the care of the teacher - a teacher who happens to be new to the school.
Meet Miriam Robertson. She has been waiting for the perfect girl. She has been watching, planning and preparing for this moment and when Harriet arrives in her classroom, she knows this is the child she has been waiting for. This is the child she wants.
What unfolds next is a gripping tale of manipulation, deceit, secrets, trickery and psychological drama.
Miriam wastes no time trying to tease information from Harriet about her home life, she wastes no time trying to catch Kirsten out, show her judgement and disapproval at Kirsten's parenting - Miriam would do things oh so differently if she were responsible for Harriet...(shudder!). Kirsten wants to be the best mother to Harriet but also has to work full time, juggle the home, and desperately tries not to feel threatened or intimidated by this new teacher who seems to have developed such a close relationship with her daughter so quickly.
I thoroughly enjoyed this story. I loved not knowing who to trust, I loved the fact that my sympathies towards both women were challenged, that each of them was flawed and that just when I thought I had things figured out, Bird would trip me up with another twist. This story is cleverly told and as more is revealed, more complications added, more twists and turns taken, it headed towards an outcome and denouement I could not have predicted or seen coming.
I really like Bird's writing and I like that she has written about domestic issues, used a domestic setting from everyday life and played on universal fears. I loved the moment when I gasped out loud as she hits me with a shocking twist that left me questioning all I thought I knew about the characters and story so far. The last third of the novel is quite a rollercoaster - never beyond belief, but just the further unraveling of the situation and knock on consequences from the major reveal, which continue to ripple through the pages and the character's narratives until they compound into a dramatic finale. And even when you've breathlessly made it to the end, Bird can't resist a final scene to leave you staring at the page with a lurching sense of unease ....
This is a great read for fans of psychological thrillers. Even if you see some of the twists coming, it's still compulsive reading as the back stories are revealed and add more darkness and complication to the dynamics and relationships between the characters. Bird explores the motivations of these women very well and the way their stories knit together is skilfully handled.
I am a fan of A L Bird because I know she will always deliver a book I can lose myself in for a few hours while she takes me on a twisting journey of shocks, twists and drama through characters I am always able to identify or empathise with in some way, and always find them intriguing enough to see how their journey ends.
Well written, well paced, with a great premise, The Classroom should make it onto your reading homework list this autumn! There are also some great book group questions at the end which I thought were really interesting.
The Classroom was published on 16th September.
If you'd like to read my review of The Good Mother then please click here, and for my review of Don't Say A Word, please click here.
Don't forget to look back over the previous stops on the blog tour to see what everyone else is saying about The Classroom!
A L BIRD
A.L. Bird lives in London, where she divides her time between writing, working as a lawyer, and running around after her young family. She loves writing dark, twisty thrillers. Bestselling 'The Good Mother' was her first major psychological thriller for HQDigital. 'Don't Say a Word' is her chilling standalone next book.
She has an MA in Creative Writing from Birkbeck, University of London, and is also a graduate of the Faber Academy ‘Writing a Novel’ course. She is a member of the Crime Writers’ Association.
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